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FORTUNE.COM // JANUARY 2020
RETAIL
Die Another Day
Whether bankrupt or sold off—these once-
doomed retailers are rising up from the ashes.
By Phil Wahba
A GROWING NUMBER of bankrupt or
failed retailers seem to be discover-
ing an afterlife this year—with some beloved brands
returning to the land of the living in notably snugger
incarnations.
Le Tote, which recently bought the struggling
Lord & Taylor from HBC, opened a pop-up shop
for the department store chain in New York City
for the holidays, its first Manhattan presence since
the store closed in early 2019. Kids’ apparel brand
Gymboree, which filed for bankruptcy in early
2019 for the second time in two years, will live on
in the form of shops within 200 Children’s Place
stores. And Barneys New York, once it is done
liquidating its stores, will have a presence at a
number of Saks Fifth Avenue stores, including the
fifth floor of the chain’s Manhattan flagship.
These cases, along with the recent small-scale
comebacks of FAO Schwarz and Toys “R” Us, all
show how much life there still is in many storied
retail brands, corporate mismanagement and
choking debt loads aside. So while the so-called
retail apocalypse has claimed a number of chains,
many are being
welcomed back
with open arms by
consumers.
In the case of
Lord & Taylor, HBC
had been very late
in equipping it for
e-commerce: It only
got around to having
a mobile-device-
friendly site last
year, among other
missteps. “We are
combining tradition
with the technol-
ogy that Le Tote is
bringing to the table,”
Le Tote chief execu-
tive Rakesh Tondon
tells Fortune. “It’s an
iconic brand,” he says
of the 193-year-old
retailer. “There’s a lot
of value in that.” And
savvier management
teams are figuring
out how to extract
such value.
mobile
retail
boom
Fortune
teamed up with
SurveyMonkey
to find out how
Americans are
shopping.
89%
BUY ONLINE
Nearly nine in
10 Americans
buy online, and
nearly 30%
buy something
online every
week.
69%
USE MOBILE
FOR SHOPPING
82% of
millennials and
55% of baby
boomers use
their mobile
phone to make
purchases.
55%
PREFER BRICKS
AND MORTAR
While nearly
everyone is
shopping online,
a majority of
respondents
said they still
prefer the
experience of
physical retail.
Retail resurrection:
Lord & Taylor finds new
life in Le Tote.
LORD & TAYLOR: EUGENE GOLOGURSK Y
—GET T Y IM
AGES; POP-UP: GET T Y IM
AGES FOR LORD + TAYLOR
